


Sand through her fingers

by Noscere



Series: Cladograms and Phylogenies [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Existential Angst, F/F, Father-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6131275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing worse than remembering that your heroes and lovers are mortal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand through her fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Long after Cinder and Salem have been defeated, Yang and Blake have settled down in the suburbs of Vale. However, the war's ghost still haunts the golden-haired brawler.

“Take care of yourself, okay dad?” Even without her boots, Yang has to bend down to hug the old man. He has to stand on his tiptoes to reach her neck. 

She breathes in deeply – he smells of the cabin in Patch and a warm fire crackling on the hearth. For a second, Yang is five years old once again.

There are thick streaks of white in the golden locks that weren’t present when she was small enough for her dad to hoist onto his shoulders. New lines cross her father’s face: a jagged scar across his temples from a Beowolf, burn marks licking his throat, deep crow’s feet under his eyes. The bright blue of his eyes – and the way they shone when she and Ruby pretended to be Huntresses – are washed out by age. But it is the face she loves and knows, and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

His beard rasps against her skin, sandpaper to the touch. “I’ll make sure to _yang_ in there for you.” Taiyang’s grin only widens as his daughter bats his head. He withdraws. “Oh, so that’s how it is. I take care of you for twenty-seven years and this is the thanks I get?”

“Dad, you kinda sucked for three or four years.”

Her dad winces as Yang’s partner comes to the front door. Blake’s jeans are wet at the pockets from soapy hands. “No kidding, sunshine. I’m so sorry. I hope I’ve made up for that?”

Yang hugs him tightly in response.

His smile turns wistful as they part. “It was good to see you, Blake.” He hugs the Cat Faunus in turn. “Keep Yang out of trouble for me?”

“You ask for impossible things, Mr. Xiao Long.” Blake winds her arms around Yang’s prosthetic one. She smiles at her partner. “Lucky for us, I’m a very patient woman.” 

Yang presses a hand to her heart. “Blakey, why you gotta hurt me?”

Blake laughs and ruffles the long tresses of golden hair cascading over her partner’s shoulders. “I’ll make it up to you, spitfire.”

Taiyang raises an eyebrow at his daughter, particularly when she turns a brilliant shade of tomato. Yang waves her free hand, as if to say, _long story_.

 

He clears his throat. “Sorry, sunshine. I know you’re not a fan of good byes. I’d better get going. Wouldn’t want your sister to start panicking.”

“I’m fairly sure Weiss will send out a search party if you’re late, Mr. Xiao Long.” Blake smiles. “You’re always welcome home. Unless, of course, you’re bringing IPAs.”

“You have terrible taste in beer,” Taiyang says flatly.

Yang punches her partner on the shoulder. “I’m with dad, Blakey. We might need to get a divorce.”

Blake makes shooing motions. “You should go, Mr. Xiao Long, before Weiss really does send out a search team.”

Taiyang Xiao Long merely laughs. Yang hugs him one last time.

“I’ll see you girls soon,” he says, then the old man hobbles down the path. His cane clanks against the cement.

A sleek, jet-black car with the Schnee Dust Company logo on its passenger door pulls up to the curb in front of the house. Ruby gets out, waves to Yang and Blake, and ushers their father in. And then they’re off, and the road before the house is silent once more.

 

Yang closes the door.

“Blakey, you and me need to talk. Spitfire?!”

Blake’s grin widens. “And…?”

“That’s our special name!”

“I didn’t think you had such an attachment to it, spitfire.” Blake laughs and dances out of Yang’s reach. “Oh, come on! You’re cute when you’re angry.”

Yang scoops her partner into her arms and carries her into the kitchen. “That’s right. You’ve made me so mad, you’ll have to clean up with me.”

“Oh no. Responsibilities. Whatever will I do.” Her partner surveys the mess on the dining table – casserole dishes with the sad remains of lasagna and baked broccoli, plates caked in sauce, and as Yang realizes with a dawning sense of horror, empty beer bottles lying next to _one of Blake’s books._

“Um, Yang, I thought we agreed. No books at the dinner table. What if the tomato sauce got on the pages?”

Yang scoops up the offending book and sets it on a chair. “Sorry, Blakey. I forgot…” She kisses the cat Faunus on the neck, then begins spooning the remaining lasagna into a Tupperware container. “I’m really sorry.”

Blake sighs with all the patience of a cat holding a kitten by the scruff of its neck. “Since you were reading to your dad, I guess I can let you off this time. But not again, please.” She takes the filled container and heads to the fridge.

“We should have dad over more often,” Yang muses, gathering the dirty cutlery. Metal clacks against her prosthetic hand. “When was the last time we saw him?”

“Too long ago. I missed him,” Blake says. The glass container clinks against the fridge shelf. “He’s a good man.”

Yang smiles as she drops the cutlery in the sink. “Best dad in the world.”

“If you don’t count the shutdown part.”

“Hey, I blue-screened pretty bad after losing this.” Yang waves her prosthetic around. “Still, there’s some benefits to having replaceable–“

“ _Yang_.”

“You enjoy it!”

“But not talking about it!” Blake shakes her head and begins stacking the containers of leftovers. “We’ll have to plan something nice for his sixtieth birthday. I can’t imagine how lonely it must be these days, with Uncle Qrow in Mistral-”

Yang’s breath freezes in her lungs.

She had hoped she would never feel this way again.

 

“Spitfire?” Blake looks up from the fridge. The blood drains from her face. She slams the door shut and rushes over to her partner. “Yang? It’s not your arm, is it?”

“Sixty…?”

“Yang, is something wrong?”

 _Yes,_ she wants to scream. _Everything is wrong. There’s nothing I can do to fix it. There is a problem barreling straight for us and nothing will be the same once it hits._

The golden haired warrior shudders. “He’s… he’s getting old…”

Blake wraps her arms around Yang’s waist. “I think we all are, spitfire,” she says in a deceptively light tone.

Yang lets out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I… I should explain.”

She leans against the wall, feeling the bumps and grooves in the paint. Taiyang had helped her build this home, after the war.

“The Xiao Longs… we are not a family of long-lived people.” She lets out a harsh laugh. “Mom and Raven don’t count. I never knew my grandma – she was sixty when she died. My granddad, he was sixty-seven. Cancer got him. Great-great grandma, sixty-four. Great-great grandpa, sixty-one. The… the point is…” she shakes her head. “Dad… dad might not be here next year.”

Yang faintly feels Blake’s kisses along her neck, but it doesn’t quell the panic bubbling in her stomach. She breathes in, and out, but there’s not enough air in her lungs.

She’s going to be left alone. Again.

Her partner pulls back, and plants a soft kiss on her lips.

“He’s healthy, spitfire.” Blake cups Yang’s cheeks. “He’s gonna make it.”

Her heart sinks. She didn’t expect Blake to understand, even if the Cat Faunus has seen her fair share of death and watched loved ones succumb to the steady flow of time. Her fear is deeper, something embedded in her bones the night Adam Taurus stabbed her partner in the gut.

“Spitfire, listen to me. He’s going to make it. We’ll see him again.”

The truth is, Yang Xiao Long is always the one left behind.

 

“He can’t. Not forever.” Yang leans her head against Blake’s neck. “He’s getting old, Blakey. One day, I’m gonna wake up, and dad’s gonna be gone.”

Blake murmurs something into Yang’s hair. Calloused hands card the golden locks.

The golden-haired warrior tries, but she can’t see a world in which she’ll meet her father after she dies. She has heard of heavens, and hells, and the limbo in between - she has fought alongside those who bore their faith like a shield against the darkness they fought. But the thought of an afterlife only lends fuel to the panic roaring in her chest. There will be no heaven, for a warrior with hair of flame, not after the blood she’s spilt and the lives she has torn from this plane. She thinks of lands where the air is fire and souls burn for eternity – imagines her body, her father's body, coals in hellfire. 

“Yang. Yang. I’m here.” Blake shakes her shoulders slightly. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“It’s not okay.” She quivers. “Sweet Dust, Blake. It’s not okay. I… I know it has to happen, but I don’t want it! I… there has to be a way, he deserves more time, I–“

Blake retreats slightly and for a moment, Yang’s heart freezes. The same loneliness comes coursing back. For a moment, she is the broken bird who lay at a window, thinking about a black-haired warrior who fled as Beacon burned.

And then Blake’s arms are tight around her waist once more, something solid and earthly grounding her.

“I’m sorry, spitfire… I wish I could do something.”

“I don’t want my daddy to go,” Yang whispers, and beneath it lies a mortal fear.

The inevitability of death presses on her shoulders, squeezing her lungs in a wordless scream. The lasagna churns inside her stomach. One day, there will be no more Taiyang to pick her up at the airport after a long mission. There will be no more quick and dirty fights in the backyard, pillars of flame soaring towards each other like avenging angels. There will be no more lasagna nights and stuffing herself sick, or her dad forgetting to put on oven mitts before pulling the turkey out of the oven and rushing for a first aid kit.

She sees the same helplessness in Blake’s eyes: for all the monsters they slay and civilians they save, they cannot block or take the blow from Father Time’s scythe.

 

Ice trickles down Yang’s spine, as she remembers that one day, it will be Blake’s turn under the scythe.

She feels the seconds slipping through her fingers: there are streaks of grey in those locks that once were solid black. Her partner is slower to respond, these days, and her fire is waning. Blake has left her dreams of activism behind: her partner watches the world change without her, passive in the flow of time. Yang dreads the day that Blake's memory begins to fade and the passion that characterizes the Cat Faunus drops away, like dewdrops from a grass blade. She fears a day when she wakes up in her bed, and the Blake beside her will be a stranger.

Yang prays with all her heart that she will go first. It’s selfish, in some parts, but she can’t imagine a world without the Cat Faunus at her side.

 

They stay there, locked together, slowly rocking back and forth as if they were dancing. The clock by the stove ticks on.

“For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.” Blake strokes her partner’s back. “Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee.”

Something light and night-blown floats through Yang’s chest.

Blake shudders as her Aura mingles with that of Yang.

“Oh…” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Blake says, her voice strong and firm. “I won’t go.”

Yang closes her eyes. “Everyone says that. Everyone leaves.”

“Then I’m not leaving without you.” Her partner presses kisses into Yang’s golden locks. “There’s time, spitfire. We might not have all the time in the world, but we have time.”

“Blake, there’s an end to that time!” Her prosthetic arm begins to vibrate as her Aura floods its sensors. Though there is no sword slicing through her right arm or blade jabbed deep into her gut, the pain draws out her Semblance. Fire licks at her hair. “I… I don’t want it to end. I know it has to end, but I don’t want it to end.” She runs her hands through her hair. “Hell. It’s… it’s going to split up the family again. Uncle Qrow’s gonna lose himself in drink. Ruby’ll shut down. And… and I don’t know what I’ll do when dad’s…”

Blake combs through Yang’s locks, fingers carefully avoiding the tongues of flame. “Spitfire. I can’t change time itself for you. But I promise, I won’t run away again.”

“I know…” She rests her head in the crook of Blake’s neck. “I just wish people didn’t have to leave.”

“I understand.” Blake hums deep in her chest. “I suppose it wouldn’t help if I mentioned the philosophical aspect.”

Yang manages a weak chuckle. Typical bookworm. “Maybe later, Blakey.”

The kitchen is quiet for a few moments. Bubbles hiss and pop in the sink.

 

Yang breathes in deep: her partner smells of old books and cinnamon, and the bergamot tea Blake loves so much. Her hands feel the hard knot of scar tissue, from a blood-red sword that once speared Blake’s gut. Her fingers slide along Blake’s white t-shirt, remembering the times she waited for Blake to wake – a groove parallel to the bottom of the rib cage, where a sweep of a Goliath’s tusk sent Blake flying into the ruin of a Mountain Glenn skyscraper. Three toughened circles on the shoulderblade, from a stake-out gone wrong. Her hands go higher, to hold Blake’s head, and her fingers run over the uneven surface. That was the worst of Blake’s injuries – a car crash in the middle of downtown Vale, Blake on her way home from work when a drunk driver sped through the red light – it was the only time that a doctor had pulled Yang aside and said, “You might want to say good-bye.”

 

Blake’s fingers rub small circles into her back.

“I’m still here,” her partner murmurs. “I’m not letting go.”

Grounding, like a mountain entrenched in the earth.

Slowly, the last flame in Yang’s hair winks out.

 

She feels Blake smile against her.

“Whatcha thinking about?’

The cat Faunus traces the curve of Yang’s cheek with a finger calloused by Gambol Shroud’s trigger. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I have you.”

The ache is lighter, and Yang breathes freely once more.

“I can’t believe you’re real sometimes,” she says, cupping Blake’s face. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m still 18 and this is all a fever dream, and Beacon is still burning.”

“Those days are gone.” Blake kisses her. “I can’t tell you what will happen, but I do know I’ll be there.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“We’ll be there,” her partner says. Her arms are tight around Yang once more: warm and solid, like sun-kissed earth beneath her toes. “We’ll make the best of our time. I promise.”

 

Yang takes a deep breath. The panic blurs away, but she knows it will be back. It always comes back.

“…You know, Dad always wanted to visit Mistral.”

“He did?”

“Something about the beaches. Did I tell you he used to surf?”

Blake laughs. “I saw the pictures. He had a little bit of Tidus going on, didn’t he.”

“Tidus?”

Her partner blushes. “Wellllll… he’s this character from Final Fantasy…”

“It’s one of your Ninjas of Love books, isn’t it.”

Blake swats her. “No, not Ninjas of Love, I did not need that image of your dad. It’s a video game. It’s an industry.”

Yang rolls her eyes and wrestles Blake into a headlock. Her partner yelps and bats at her ribs, but Yang’s bosom quickly muffles the dark-haired warrior’s protests.

She thinks of the future, days ticking by like the second hand of a clock. Fifteen years ago, when Beacon fell, she could have never have imagined this day – Blake by her side, a hand to match the phantom in her mind, team RWBY hale and hearty. Fifteen years ago, her father was there by her side, his battle axes at her back and the roar of his voice in her ears – tomorrow, he may not see the sun rise.

So as Blake wrenches herself from the headlock and pins Yang’s arms to the wall, Yang vows to make every minute count. There will be more lasagna dinners at this house – drunken laughter at the old cabin in Patch – social functions at the Schnee Family mansion – and she will live in the present.

After all, there is still time.

 


End file.
